Barbara
Mandrel recorded a song some years back that talked about ‘Sleeping Single in a Double
Bed.’ It was about a lovers’ quarrel and the aftermath. I never paid much
attention to it at the time because back then I was single and slept in a
double bed all the time. I used to make jokes about sleeping double in a single
bed but never gave much thought to actually experiencing that. For years the
song never had any further significance until a short time ago.
My wife is a retired bank manager
and I’m a retired auto and diesel mechanic. My wife worked at a branch of the
bank on the local Indian Reservation. Being curious about the Native American
lifestyle Kenzie talked to her customers about various events and traditions. One
thing she found out was that Natives give a lot of blankets as gifts. Since the
bank wanted to be part of the community Kenzie persuaded the powers that be to
donate blankets as prizes and promotional items. Kenzie found some good sources
for those things and eventually found individuals coming in asking if she could
bring some blankets in for them.
What Kenzie didn’t realize was that
she would be turning that into a small business. While she was still working
for the bank she actually stocked blankets for vendors from the reservation who
traveled to pow-wows and other Native events and had a successful venture.
After Kenzie retired, people still called upon her for blankets but the numbers
were down—out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. But she needed something to
do so she decided that she would venture out and sell blankets on her own.
Despite coming from an urban
background Kenzie became a good transplant for small-town life. She stocked up
on blankets and other accessories and began to set up shop at various rodeos,
swap meets, Christmas shows, and state fairs. Business grew and soon she
expanded from loading the Chevy Tahoe to the rooftop with merchandise, to a
small 8x10 cargo trailer.
Actually, though we had considered
buying a cargo trailer some time down the road, we were in Albuquerque at one
of our suppliers picking out items to fill a large stock order when the husband
of the supplier suggested that rather than ship everything home by freight truck
we should just go out and buy a small cargo trailer and haul the shipment home
in it. A couple of trips like this and it wouldn’t be long before the trailer
was paid for.
Well, we left the order in
Albuquerque and continued onward to Las Cruces, where my brother lives, then
onto El Paso to pick up another order. Kenzie found a trailer sales lot
conveniently located nearby and bought an 8x10 cargo trailer.
It turned out to be a good
investment. Besides picking up freight orders we used it to haul our wares to
the various events which were adding up at a steady pace. Business got better
and within another year we were looking at making some modifications to our
situation again.
Hotel rooms were taking an ever-increasing bite out of the profits. True there were some places where we had
family and friends who were more than willing to put us up but it was still
becoming a strain. I might add that by then I had retired so I went along to be
the pack mule to unload and reload while Kenzie organized the booth. She would
be the seller and I would lurk behind the scenes and read, write, chat on
social media, and do a lot of real live visiting until I was summoned to either
bring more merchandise or mind the booth while Kenzie took a break. We noticed
a lot of vendors using substantial toy-haulers. They hauled their wares in the
garage area and lived in the front. Well, getting a toy hauler plus a larger
truck to handle it was pretty much out of the question but Kenzie continued to
check out the classifieds to see if something might show up.
It did, in the form of a small 8 x 12
single axle ‘Work And Play’ unit. We could haul our merchandise, unload it, and
have the trailer to camp in while the event was on. When the event was over,
slide the bed out of the way, load up and it was off to the next event.
The little trailer was actually well
set up. It essentially had the kitchen in the front, accessible from the
outside under a full-width door and contained a microwave, a gas-fired hot
plate, and a cold water sink (I have no idea why they had both a hot and cold
water tap because to get hot water you had to heat it over the hot plate).
There was even a heater, an A-C unit plus a flat-screen TV. Since the events
ran during the summer it was simply camping. If we couldn’t find a place to
plug the trailer in, we had a small generator set to at least keep the
cellphones charged.
This arrangement went quite well.
Since we always had a lot of merchandise in the trailer we still lacked space.
We had a larger than normal-sized single bed which was actually quite comfortable
for the two of us. And I’ll tell you, we must’ve gotten along quite well
because we slept together in it without one argument.
Now, most of the time, our trips
were made from our home base during the week. We headed out, set up, took down, and drove home for two or three days R&R before we had to do it all over
again. But there were a lot of events that got strung together making any home
R&R next to impossible.
We did get a chance to practice the
actual camping when we did the annual rodeo at Writing on Stone Park. The park is situated on the International Boundary on a number of riverflats
down the Milk River about twenty-six miles east of the I-15. There, under the
shadows of the massive sandstone hoodoos, in the most primitive of conditions,
is the location of the rodeo. And I mean primitive conditions. There is NO
power unless you have a generator and if you want luxuries such as Internet,
you need to drive to the top of the bluffs above the park and run your
transactions there. It’s still as death and the daytime high can tease triple
digits without much difficulty.
Well, that first weekend in August we
loaded up both the cargo trailer and the toy-hauler and headed for Writing on
Stone. We got the tents set up and the merchandise displayed then, while Kenzie
was busy attending to some of the finer details, I pulled the toy-hauler around
to a reasonable camping spot and set up camp. The daytime high that particular
day was around 95 but slowly cooled down to the 70s in the evening. If you were
lucky you could actually have the interior of the camper down that low and you
could get some sleep.
And sleep we did, although it was a
practiced ritual. Sleeping on your right side was just fine as long as both of
us wanted to do that. When someone wanted to sleep on the left side both had to
agree. I might add that nocturnal washroom breaks were postponed either until
your back teeth started floating away or the morning time came.
Overall, Writing on Stone was a good
experiment and we had to say that it was a grand success. I might add that
sales at the rodeo were great and that assured us and everyone else that we
would be back for more the following year.
Home for a couple of days then it was
time for a major run that would take us from the end of the first full week in
August to the end of the second weekend in September.
The Northwest Montana State Fair was a
first for us. We got outdoor vendor space for our two tents and were even able
to keep the trailer on site. Since we had to take a lot of extra merchandise
there wasn’t going to be a lot of space to camp in. But that was okay, as my
cousin has a nice cabin in Hungry Horse, just a few miles east toward West
Glacier and he is always glad to have us crash there. I might add that on this
trip we had a sizeable armoire that we had fixed up for our granddaughter in Wisconsin,
our final destination.
So we got into the fairgrounds in
Kalispell, set up our tents, got acquainted with our neighbors, one who was
selling nice Burl lamps and log furniture, and one across the street who sold
beauty and skincare products. We had just finished getting everything set up
when the first real monkey wrench got thrown into the works.
Since the western plains and
intermountain region is subject to wind and thundershowers we have to do our
best to anchor our tents down lest they ‘sail’ away to some prairie port in
North Dakota. Since we were on pavement we couldn’t drive stakes in the ground.
Anticipating wind and stormy conditions we had several plastic cans that each
held around five gallons of water, tied to the metal frame of the tents.
However, we were finishing up for the day and hadn’t gotten around to attaching
the walls when some ominous dark clouds began to form up at the north end of
the valley. They came up fast and we were frantically trying to get the walls
in when all hell broke loose.
Wind, rain, debris, and maybe a
couple of small children whipped everything into a frenzy. It came in from the
northwest and we had just gotten the north wall up and were trying to connect
it to one of the sidewalls on the west. But the wind had other ideas and it
was doing everything it could despite having to deal with five-hundred pounds
of ballast. Fortunately, we had a lot of good people leaving the fair about then
and soon we had several bodies holding everything down until we could get the
sides all zipped up and attached to the frame.
No real harm done except for about
fifteen soaked blankets which we were able to take back to Hungry Horse and use
the driers in the laundromat. I might add that for the next four days the
weather threatened but never got out of hand. We rolled out of Kalispell on
Sunday night with a somewhat lighter trailer and feeling successful both with
the fair, and the new friends we had made.
The next stop was Billings where
there was a significant Barrel Racing event going on. We were given a wide
place inside a wash-barn, where other vendors and a massage therapist were
setting up. It was spacious enough to set up one of our tents and organize it
into an attractive store. Our good friend just east of Billings was only too
glad to put us up although she was a little concerned as a massive hailstorm
the week before had peppered the siding on her house and took out every piece
of glass on the south side. They were just addressing the damage when we showed
up.
But all was well. We had a good time
and a successful event. It was a rather somber experience packing up and moving
on.
We stayed on the I-90 from Billings
and dipped on down into Wyoming and drove through an awful lot of terrain where
you could watch the dog run away for three days. I well remember this route as
I had been down it on my two-wheeled conveyance several times in the past to
attend the Black Hills Motorcycle Classic. Let me just say that it was
different in a truck with air-conditioning, radio playing, and relative quiet.
But the bike trips were fun too.
If you’re driving down I-90, even if
you’re a vendor at an event down the road, always give yourself some time to
stop and see some sights. I saw the Devil’s Tower for the first time in 1969 and
at least three times after that. Kenzie had never seen it so she thought it
would be a good idea to stop there.
It truly is a sight to behold, that
mass of columns pushed up to the height of eight hundred feet pretty much in
the middle of nowhere. I remember times when you could simply drive up to it.
Well, you still can, but you’ve got to pass through a gate where you have to
pay someone to gain access. That’s okay, as I actually agree that you don’t get
something for nothing. I also must have looked like a senior citizen and they
took pity on us so we got the senior’s discount.
And even though I insist that the
word, ‘senior’ refers to real old people who are older than I am,
I guess I’m in that category whether I like it or not.
Still having a couple of days to
take it easy we also stopped to see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Mount
Rushmore still looks the same although they added a lot to the parking and even
put up a place to eat and a souvenir shop.
We continued onto the Crazy Horse
monument which has seen a lot of progress in the past thirty or so years. You
can actually see the warrior’s face coming out of the rock whereas the first
time I saw it there was a hole through the mountain where his armpit would
eventually be.
It was time for the next event of
our tour, the South Dakota State Fair, in the rather small community of Huron.
Now, this is an interesting event. It seems like everybody in South Dakota shows
up for the fair. Getting unloaded and moved into your booth was a major achievement
because there were trucks and trailers, and vans everywhere you could find a
space large enough to park. But in the end, everyone got moved in and all was
well.
I should say that the campground was
something else. To say that the trailers were packed in like sardines would be
a gross understatement. We were fortunate enough to have a site on the end of a
row and with a somewhat shorter trailer than some of the behemoths that were
there, access was a breeze—almost. I have to add that I was so thankful that I
didn’t have to jackknife a 30-foot 5th Wheel into a place halfway
down the road. But all in all, there were ten thousand people in that
campground. There were two sizeable washroom facilities and everyone got along.
I remember being kept awake by some enthusiastic
visiting a few trailers down the road. I got up and went over to ask them to
tone it down. I was promptly offered a chair and a beer—not necessarily in that
order—and we got acquainted. It wasn’t long before we forgot about the annoying
noise…
A lot of wonderful, friendly people
at the South Dakota State Fair.
Once again it was time to load up
and get on the road. We were under somewhat of a crunch this time as we had to
make it to our daughter’s place by the following morning. We packed up and I’m
sure glad it wasn’t any hotter than eighty degrees out there because the
humidity was close to saturated and in no time at all, we were soaked with
sweat. On the road again, we headed for Central Wisconsin which meant we would
be driving most of the night through Minnesota. With the sun setting on our
right side we headed down to Mitchell where we would hopefully hop back onto
I-90 and get on our way. That’s when our second monkey wrench hit us.
Driving into Mitchell we somehow
missed the interchange to get onto I-90. Looking back it was probably the best
because we ended up in town and out of the traffic. One thing I’m extremely
careful about is to check the conditions of the wheels and tires on everything
especially the trailer. Our toy hauler does run smaller tires than I would like
to see and for its size, it’s far from light. Plus we had a pretty good load on
it. The trailer was designed to haul a full-sized motorcycle plus a full tank
of water and baggage. While we didn’t have a motorcycle on board we had an armoire,
filled with clothes and things for the grandkids. Plus, we had ten large
plastic tubs filled with merchandise.
I felt the wheel hubs and tires on
the trailer every time we stopped from the time we left home. They were always
warm to the touch but they weren’t hot, and there was no change all the way
from Kalispell to Huron. I really didn’t expect anything to go wrong but,
coming into Mitchell, I caught what I thought might be a wisp of smoke from the
right wheel. It was after dark and I watched it closely, and also looked for a
place to turn off and take a closer look.
I finally realized that the smoke
was coming directly out of the hub which told me that a bearing had decided to
check out. I felt totally helpless. I pulled into the lot of a repair shop and
verified that the wheel hub was almost hot enough to ignite. And it was making
some noises that were not conducive to a healthy wheel bearing.
I mentioned before that we were
supposed to be at our daughter’s place in the center of Wisconsin the following
morning. You see there is a tradition in our family; Papa takes his grandkids
to school for their first day. Two years before, I took my granddaughter. Now
it was time to take my grandson, the day after Labor Day. And I never fail. And
today was Labor Day. And we were some hundreds of miles away, now with a broken-down trailer.
I called Triple-A and was informed
that we didn’t have coverage for our trailer. Well, that meant that we needed
to find a tow truck. I got on Google and found what I needed, a towing service
just out of Mitchell. I called the number and got an answer right away. It
turned out that Paul, the driver/owner was in town with another job and there
was no problem. He did repairs at his place and he would take the trailer
there, fix the wheel and we could come back to retrieve it.
“Just pull it into the bank’s
parking lot across the street,” he said. “I’ll be back to get it in the
morning.”
Kenzie immediately quizzed him:
“What about if the bank sees it and wants it towed away?”
“I’m the one they’ll call,” Paul
said with a grin.
“Well, we dodged a bullet there.” We
parked the trailer and continued on our journey. And we made it to the kids’
place around four in the morning. A couple of hours of shut-eye and I was in as
good a shape as I could be in.
And Papa took his grandson to school for his first day.
Of course we had to drive back to
Mitchell to retrieve the trailer, which we pulled back to the kids’ place so we
could unload the armoire and other things we had brought for the kids. A few
days to unwind and especially to enjoy the kids and grandkids and, though it
was all too soon, it was time to head for home.
The trip home was largely
uneventful. Lots of rain in Western North Dakota and Eastern Montana, some
mud-bogging through some road construction, which we saw a poor motorcyclist
have to navigate (I did that myself more than once. Even had some Wisconsin red
mud plastered to the cylinders.). Just over five weeks on the road and we were
home to a badly neglected lawn that almost needed to be swathed.
But it was a fun trip. However, I do
have to say that I’m not all that enthusiastic about repeating it like that.
But if we have to, I guess we’ll have to drag out that single bed one more
time.
